The Moon Palace

  • 104'
  • China
  • 2007

“At the end of May 2006, I got the news that my parents would close the restaurant that had been open for fourteen years in July. Because I felt sorry, I decided to make a film about it. The filming began after daily meals and slight inebriation … [as the atmosphere] became more and more screwed up.”

That is Qiu Jiongjiong’s assessment of his remarkable debut The Moon Palace: a portrait of his father and the restaurant he ran. In this experimental black-and-white documentary, vivid evocations of Sichuan opera (including one about the great inebriated Tang poet Li Bai) alternate with Qiu’s father’s elegies to wine and Qiu’s aunties’ reminiscences about politics, art, persecution, and movie stars. Simulated interviews pastiched with non-synchronous sound, a superb hybrid score, and a curious dancing chicken round out this set of documentary gestures that magically coalesce into a patriarchal portrait that’s rambunctious, probing, nostalgic, and critical.

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Available on Festival Scope Pro from 26 January 9:00 CET to 14 February 9:00 CET



  • 104'
  • China
  • 2007
Director
Qiu Jiongjiong
Country of production
China
Year
2007
Festival Edition
P&I Selection 2022
Length
104'
Medium
Digital
Original title
Da jiu lou
Language
Chinese
Producer
Qiu Jiongjiong
Sales
Qiu Jiongjiong
Screenplay
Qiu Jiongjiong
Cinematography
Qiu Jiongjiong, Yang Yong, Lu Wei
Editor
Qiu Jiongjiong
Production Design
Qiu Jiongjiong
Sound Design
Qiu Jiongjiong
Music
Diao Lili
Cast
Qiu Zhimin, He Jiaqi, Wang Kaihua, Wen Ke
Director
Qiu Jiongjiong
Country of production
China
Year
2007
Festival Edition
P&I Selection 2022
Length
104'
Medium
Digital
Original title
Da jiu lou
Language
Chinese
Producer
Qiu Jiongjiong
Sales
Qiu Jiongjiong
Screenplay
Qiu Jiongjiong
Cinematography
Qiu Jiongjiong, Yang Yong, Lu Wei
Editor
Qiu Jiongjiong
Production Design
Qiu Jiongjiong
Sound Design
Qiu Jiongjiong
Music
Diao Lili
Cast
Qiu Zhimin, He Jiaqi, Wang Kaihua, Wen Ke

Programme IFFR 2022

Focus: Qiu Jiongjiong

Qiu Jiongjiong is one of China’s most innovative, critical, and entertaining artists/filmmakers, whose works joyously blur the boundaries between fiction, documentary, and experimental cinema. Intimate memory and national history resonate in Qiu’s baroque rhapsodies of music and design. We present seven of his films including his new masterwork A New Old Play.

Read more about this programme